Sleeping on the Edge of the Sky
by santeria
Summary: Hallowe’en 1983: Sixth year Draco Malfoy commits suicide. Hallowe’en 1996: the Golden Trio accidentally raise the dead. AU. Not slash.
1. Sing What You Can't Say

**Summary: **Hallowe'en 1983: Sixth year Draco Malfoy commits suicide. Hallowe'en 1996: the Golden Trio accidentally raise the dead. AU.

**A/N:** Main title is part of a line from Switchblade Symphony's "Mine Eyes". Chapter titles are from Nightwish's "Dead Boy's Poem". Also, nightshade is a poisonous plant.

The chapters will probably be kind of short. Sorry about that.

**Sleeping on the Edge of the Sky**

**Ch. 1: Sing What You Can't Say**

_It was neither dark nor stormy, and the evening fog was just beginning to settle over the frosted grounds of Hogwarts when Draco Malfoy, firmly ensconced in the Room of Hidden Things, raised a smoking goblet into the chilly air, murmured "Cheers" to no one, and drained the goblet in one long gulp. For a moment, nothing happened, and Draco frowned slightly. A second later, however, his silver eyes rolled soundlessly back into his head, his long legs crumpled beneath him, and he fell to the floor, twitching slightly as a thin thread of blood traced its way out of his mouth and down one marble-smooth cheek. The still-smoking goblet crashed to the stone floor, and the tendrils of smoke that wafted around the dead boy smelled faintly of nightshade._

XxXxXxXxXx

Ron rubbed his eyes and yawned absurdly loudly. "Why couldn't we have done this in the morning? _I_ wouldn't mind missing History of Magic," he grumbled, sounding slightly hopeful at the end of his sentence as if there really was a chance that Hermione would agree to let them go back to bed and miss class in the morning. Harry yawned as well, privately agreeing with Ron, although he didn't dare say it aloud. Hermione had been in a foul mood all day and Harry really didn't fancy getting yelled at just now. Instead, he sat on the cold floor of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom and stared at the cracked mirrors. _They really should get those fixed_, he thought absently, already falling asleep in spite of the chill that pervaded the air. Fall had hit Hogwarts hard, and the castle's lack of heating meant that the students often had to wrap themselves in so many sweaters and cloaks that they all resembled black marshmallows.

"Harry?" Hermione's sharp voice pierced through his tired haze and Harry peered up to see Hermione Granger, her hands on her hips as she glared at him over the smoking cauldron.

"Huh?" He felt rather like he had in Snape's class last year; whenever Snape felt the need to humiliate Harry further he (Snape) would pepper him (Harry) with difficult Potions questions until a large amount of points had been taken from Gryffindor due to Harry's ignorance of what burning henbane did or what you got when you mixed Chizpurfle fangs and shredded dittany.

"I _asked_ whether you got the hippogryff feathers and the saffron, Harry," Hermione said patiently.

"Right." He'd filched the feathers and the spice from Slughorn's potions cupboard earlier that day, and had accidentally knocked over a whole row of jars of feathers. He'd cast a hasty _Reparo_ and managed to grab some feathers and vanish under the Invisibility Cloak just as Slughorn appeared to investigate the sound of shattering glass. He fished the feathers and saffron from the moleskin pouch that Hagrid had given him for Christmas a year ago and handed them to Hermione, who promptly ordered Ron to crush the black feathers while she mixed in the saffron.

The potion they were brewing was even more complicated than Polyjuice Potion, which they had just learned earlier that year. It was a complex wound-healing potion that would, they figured, come in useful, as dark times had fallen over the Wizarding World and Sybil Trelawney had recently experienced a vision concerning an upcoming clash between the forces of light and dark.

The Dark Lord Voldemort had been resurrected two years ago, when Harry had been fourteen years old and a competitor in the Triwizard Tournament (although in that tournament there had been four contestants; Harry had previously pondered whether that meant it had been the Tetrawizard Tournament for that year). Voldemort's followers, the Death Eaters, had flocked back to their risen lord in droves, and attacks on Muggles and Muggleborns had been increasing steadily since then. Just last week, Justin Finch-Fletchley had been called home when his older sister had been found murdered in her flat, the Dark Mark looming over her body. Justin had not been the first to disappear from Hogwarts, and would doubtlessly not be the last.

The persistent chill in the air was due not only to the changing seasons, but also to the rapidly breeding Dementors. Wizards and witches everywhere ventured out only when they needed to, all Hogsmeade trips for that year had been cancelled, and Harry could not help feeling that the tension was about to break and plunge the entire Wizarding world into a massive and bloody Final Battle. The Final Battle was especially important to Harry, since Harry had, even before his birth, been chosen by a prophecy to be the one to defeat Voldemort. It was very burdensome to be the Chosen One, and Harry was all too anxious to have the war over and done with, preferably with as few casualties as possible. Hence, the wound-healing potion that he, Ron, and Hermione were finishing tonight, in spite of the fact that it was Hallowe'en and on the verge of midnight.

"Here," Ron shoved the crushed feathers toward Hermione, an eager expression on his face. Hermione's hair was bushier than ever, and she brushed the course strands out of her face before steadily pouring the pulverized feathers into the brew and strengthening the flame. A strange tinny sound emitted from the cauldron and Harry leaned forward to see what was happening. The potion, which had moments before been a deep turquoise, was now bubbling fiercely and rapidly darkening.

"I don't think that's supposed to happen." Hermione's voice was a horrified whisper, and a thick puff of acrid black smoke rose out of the cauldron. Harry had a sudden memory of knocking down the jars of feathers; gryffin and hippogriff feathers had been right next to each other, and, with a sickening feeling in his gut, he remembered reaching hurriedly over the dark blue hippogryff feathers and snatching up a few black feathers- _gryffin_ _feathers_- before fleeing the potions cupboard. The last thing he saw before blacking out was the potion, now a deep blood-red, flaming brightly and on the verge of explosion. As the black smoke washed over him, he heard the whistle of wind rushing past.

XxXxXxXxXx

Harry blinked. Everything was so _grey_...he blinked again and realized why-- he was lying on the bathroom floor, the left side of his face smooshed against the grey stone and his glasses askew. He heard rustling from the other side of the bathroom, and a moment later heard Ron's voice.

"What happened? Harry? Hermione? You guys okay?"

"We're fine, Ronald. Harry just woke up." Hermione sounded vaguely frightened, although she was doing a pretty admirable job of hiding it; her voice was trembling a bit, which was how Harry knew she was afraid. Sitting up, he saw Ron and Hermione, their faces so plastered with black soot that it looked like they had rubbed charcoal all over their faces; Ron looked almost comical, his bright red hair contrasting outrageously with his blackened face. Harry noticed that his glasses were covered in soot as well and attempted to clean them with the hem of his robes, although he quickly realized that it was useless because his robes were soot-stained as well.

Seeing that neither Harry nor Ron were hurt, Hermione's fear immediately turned to anger. Her face (had anyone been able to see under the soot) was flushed a bright pink and her hair was frothing around her head like a frizzy brown cloud. "I hope you're happy. The potion is _ruined_," she snapped, gesturing violently toward the cauldron, which was tipped dejectedly on its side, a faint dent in the rim. "We're lucky nothing happened when it blew up."

A giggle drifted down from the ceiling, and Harry looked up. Moaning Myrtle, looking oddly gleeful, smiled down at them. "You're wrong. Something _did_ happen." She was smirking down at Hermione, whom she seemed to like to tease ever since Harry's second year at Hogwarts, when one of Neville Longbottom's potions had spilled over Hermione and half-transformed her into a cat, an event that Myrtle had found hilarious.

"What?!" Hermione demanded harshly; Harry supposed she was mad about being accused of being wrong. Hermione was rarely, if ever, wrong about anything.

"Oh, you'll see," Myrtle said coyly. She winked teasingly at Harry before diving into her toilet. Hermione let out a strangled sigh and, with a light sweep of her wand, shrunk the empty cauldron into the size of a thimble. "I'm going to bed. I'll see you at breakfast." She pocketed the cauldron and marched out of the washroom, her nose in the air, not even bothering to throw on the Invisibility cloak. Harry picked up the Cloak as he and Ron followed her toward the Gryffindor dormitory. "Girls," muttered Ron. "Nutters," agreed Harry, throwing the Cloak over them.

Hopefully everything would be better in the morning, suppressing a yawn. He really needed a break.


	2. Forget What You Can't Play

**Sleeping on the Edge of the Sky**

**Chapter 2: Forget What You Can't Play**

Something was different. He was surrounded by darkness and felt weightless, but that was no different from how he'd been before. He'd been floating in darkness for as long as he could remember, it seemed, and then all of a sudden he had felt something shift, as if the very universe had been thrown momentarily off balance. There was _something_...something was off...and then Draco realized that the air around him was cool and smelt like earth. He _felt_ the air and he _smelled_ it, and he couldn't remember the last time he'd done those things.

Tentatively he reached out, trying to touch his surroundings, and realized with a start that he could see his hand. It looked very pale, but in an odd pearly sort of way. In fact, it seemed slightly transparent; he could see some of the black filtering _through_ his hand. Then he remembered the faint scent of nightshade and the Room of Hidden Things, and he knew. He was dead. He was dead but he was moving his hand and he could see through said hand. He was a ghost; there was no other explanation.

Experimentally, he sat up; he could feel earth and wood surrounding him, but the feelings were hardly tangible, as if he were somehow feeling them from some great distance. Earth...wood...a ghost—he was buried! Horrified, Draco jumped away from what he now knew to be his body...and kept floating up through the coffin lid and the dirt piled on top of it, and straight out into the grey autumn sky. Even though the sun was mostly blocked by thick clouds the sudden light was blinding and he immediately had to squeeze his eyes shut, he was so overwhelmed by the abrupt activation of his senses.

He took a deep calming breath then remembered that he didn't need to breathe. Merlin's pants, this was weird. He paused, considering; he'd just been in a coffin with his own dead body, and some morbid part of him was wondering what that body looked like. Actually, no, he really didn't want to see that, because even if he'd been buried for only a few days his body would already be starting to decay. Gross. How long had he been dead? And where _was_ he?

Draco straightened and glanced around him. Green hills glittered with morning frost, and not too far away was a still, dark forest. It looked a lot like the Forbidden Forest, actually. He tried to remember if there had been a forest near the Malfoy family plot. He was pretty sure there wasn't. He turned slowly around and saw...Hogwarts? It looked exactly as he remembered it; not a single stone was different. But his being at buried at Hogwarts made no sense. It might not even be legal. But he'd committed suicide (Draco winced at that thought), and in doing so had dishonored the Malfoy family name. There was some unspoken rule that Malfoys did not admit defeat or show weakness, and killing oneself was a surefire way to break that rule. His father had probably refused to bury Draco on family ground.

Draco stared at the castle. It looked so peaceful, a sanctuary that held that answers to his questions. He may have been dead for three days or three hundred, but at the moment Draco did not care what year it was. He started for the castle, briefly noting that his feet glided a good meter off the ground. It wasn't like he had anything to lose, he mused as he floated straight through the front doors. He was already dead.

The entrance hall had not changed from his days as a student, and the school corridors still held the mixed scents of parchment and pumpkin, with a faint underlay of owls and Dungbombs. From farther down the corridor there floated a faint roar, as if a great river was rushing tumultuously past, but it was really the roar of hundreds of students conversing while they ate their food in the Great Hall. Cautious but curious, Draco glided toward the Hall, eager to see if he would recognize anyone there and also a bit anxious about what he would do if he ran into one of his old friends. What did a ghost say if a living friend asked why he had killed himself?

The ceiling of the Great Hall was the same dull grey as the sky outside was, and thousands of candles hovered high above the tables. It took a moment for him to register at first, as the uniforms the students wore were of the same style as the uniform he did, but none of the students' faces were familiar ones. As he peered around the door, he noticed that some of the younger students at the nearby Hufflepuff table were pointing at him. He glared at them and they quickly turned, their widened eyes attesting to how intimidating his glare was even though he was nothing but vapor.

He was smirking to himself when he saw McGonagall. The Professor's face was drained of color as she gazed at him, and beside her Snape looked like he was on the verge of a conniption fit. And even from this distance, it was not hard to see that Dumbledore's eyes were definitely _not_ twinkling. Bugger. He'd forgotten about the teachers. Suddenly ashamed, he turned his back to the Great Hall and fled. Even as he flew away he felt a faint tugging at his back, like someone was trying to pull him back to the hall, but he continued his flight.

He did not want to be seen.

XxXxXxXxXx

Hermione was in a surprisingly cheerful mood when the trio when down to breakfast. Her explanation was that none of them had been caught wandering around last night, and none of them had been hurt when the potion exploded. "But we really must start another batch of the potion tonight," she'd added, heaping sausage on Ron's plate and pouring herself some pumpkin juice. Harry didn't question her explanation; he was already trying not to fall asleep. History of Magic was going to be Hell today.

Ron tugged at the sleeve of Harry's robe. "Look!" He pointed to the doors, and Harry and Hermione looked over and saw a ghost drifting in the doorway. Ghosts were common at Hogwarts; Harry was friends with Nearly Headless Nick, the Gryffindor ghost, and had been teased by Ron on several occasions about the fact that Moaning Myrtle clearly had a crush on him. The Fat Friar was a friendly Hufflepuff ghost, the Grey Lady was the aloof Ravenclaw spectre, and the Bloody Baron was the creepy Slytherin ghost. There were other ghosts floating around, but the ghost at the doors of the Great Hall did not look familiar.

He was boy, quite tall and thin, and his pearly translucence made it hard to tell what his coloring had been when he was alive. His face was slim and pointed and his hair was smooth and combed. What was shocking about him, however, was the clothing he wore. They were Hogwarts robes, replete with a crest on the left side of the chest. The only ghost he'd seen who wore Hogwarts robes was Moaning Myrtle. Harry couldn't tell what House the boy had been in, and even as he leaned closer to try and examine the crest, the ghost boy vanished.

As soon as the boy disappeared from sight, Harry felt a tug in his chest, like an icy finger wrapping around his heart and pulling him forward. "Do you guys feel that?" A swift glance at Ron and Hermione told Harry that they did, and Harry clambered out of his seat, abandoning his kippers and juice. "Come on!" Without glancing back to see if his two friends were following, Harry strode toward the spot where the ghost boy had been standing. The tugging was more insistent now, and by the time they reached the doors they were running. Harry followed corridors, led by the icy feeling but having no idea where he was headed. He needed to find the ghostly boy; that would make the ice go away...he ran up a lengthy flight of stairs and made a sharp right, and stopped. They were on the seventh floor, and a few paces ahead was the wall that masked the Room of Requirement.

Heart thudding, Harry leaned against the wall to catch his breath. Hermione staggered beside him, clutching a stitch in her side. Ron leaned against the wall beside Harry, breathing raggedly.

"Did you see the teachers' faces?" Hermione asked once she had regained her breath.

"No," said Harry, nettled that she was thinking about teachers when the ghostly boy was clearly more important at the moment.

"Huh?" wheezed Ron.

"The teachers," snapped Hermione. "When they saw the boy. Snape looked like he was going to faint."

Harry had a sudden mental image of Snape swooning to the floor in front of the entirety of the Great Hall. The thought cheered him considerably, but his glee was quickly dashed when Hermione asked, "Don't you understand what's going on here?"

"No." Ron was breathing steadily now, although his face was still quite as red as his hair.

"It was that potion! I was doing the incantation when it exploded!"

"And?"

"I think it worked! I think it healed that dead boy enough that his spirit was brought back to life!"

"Then what's with the--?" Ron gestured to his chest to indicate the tugging feeling.

Harry blinked. "Then how do we know we didn't bring anyone else to life?"

"It wasn't a very strong spell, Harry. I don't think it reached very far. And I think..." she hesitated before plowing on. "I think we felt that...feeling... because we brought him to life. We're connected to him."

Harry and Ron exchanged glances, and Hermione huffed.

"I don't know about you two, but _I'm_ going to the library." And she marched off.

XxXxXxXxXx

"Necromancy," murmured Hermione while flipping through a large black book with pages yellowed and warped with age. It seemed to emit a soft whimpering sound with every turn of the page. "We _are_ connected to him. We can control him."

Harry turned a page in his own book, which had a lot of grisly pictures of corpses brought back to life by necromancers. It was quite horrible to look at, and he was skimming through it as fast as he could. "But how do we send him back?"

"Well...ghosts are spirits who chose to stay on earth..."

"He didn't choose to stay," Harry reminded her.

She shrugged. "There must be _something_..." She bent over the book and continued perusing, leaving Harry to put the rest of the unhelpful books back on the shelves.

While slipping _Theurgic Magic and the Occult_ back onto its shelf, Harry caught a glimpse of bright red Weasley hair. Ron was standing not in the Restricted section but in front of a row of shelves that contained hundreds of thin books. As he neared the shelf, Harry saw that they were yearbooks; they all bore the Hogwarts crest and House colors, and few had the school motto etched onto their front covers. Many of the older ones were evidently being held together only with magic; their bindings were loose and slumped hopelessly.

"Look at this," Ron shoved the yearbook he was holding at Harry, open to a page that showed several bored-looking sixth years, all of them bedecked in Slytherin robes. "This one," added Ron, jabbing a finger at a boy in the third row of photos. "Draco Malfoy," Harry read, training his eyes on the picture.

Malfoy had the same slim, pointed features as the ghost boy; his hair was also smooth and sleek, and his skin and hair were so fair that he didn't look much darker than he did in ghost form. He peered up at them curiously, silver eyes searching them as they examined him. Harry imagined it must be very boring to live in a yearbook.

"That's him." Harry glanced at the front cover of the yearbook. It was from early 1983, and the school motto was emblazoned below the year.

_Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus_.

_Never Tickle a Sleeping Dragon_.

Too late for that.


	3. Hasten to Drown in Beautiful Eyes

**A/N: **Draco's name means either "dragon" or "snake", depending on whether you're looking at the Greek translation or the Latin one.

"Draco Dormiens Nunquam Titillandus" is the Hogwarts school motto.

Snape is nice in this chapter because he's talking to Draco, whom he likes.

**Sleeping on the Edge of the Sky**

**Chapter 3: Hasten to Drown in Beautiful Eyes**

The Room of Requirement was almost exactly the same as Draco remembered it. There were a few new items scattered amongst the refuse: a bunch of bedraggled white quills, a scratched but beautifully carved chess set, a silver robe, a tattered potions textbook. Draco glided his hand through the debris; he moved his hand through a bent birdcage five times because he could faintly feel the coldness of the metal, then continued drifting aimlessly around the room. He didn't know what to _do_. He hated not knowing what to do, because he was still a Malfoy, and Malfoys always had some sort of purpose, no matter how small.

Hours passed; the icy tugging was still lingering faintly in his chest, but any sense of urgency had long since vanished. The iciness simply rested inside him, not quite peaceful and completely annoying. What did the iciness mean, anyway? Perhaps he could ask one of the other ghosts? But then he'd have to leave the Room...Draco shook his head impatiently, silently chiding himself for being such a dolt. He'd have to leave the Room at some point. He smoothed his hair back and straightened his robes as he floated toward the doorway. If nothing else, he wanted to look presentable.

He floated through the thick wooden door and out into the corridor. It was empty. The only things that greeted him were a dull grey wall and a single brightly lit sconce, its flame quivering expectantly in the shadows.

Well, _that_ was uplifting, thought Draco sarcastically. Merlin, no wonder he'd killed himself. This castle positively reeked of gloom and doom...and then he realized something that literally made him drop out of the air in shock. _He didn't remember exactly why he killed himself._ In fact, his entire past was naught but a hazy blur in his mind. He had remembered the Malfoy family plot earlier, but now the memory was hardly recall.

He finally caught himself when he fell straight through the castle foundations and plunged into the frigid earth below the stones. Gasping unnecessarily, he shot back up toward the dungeons. _Okay, Draco, get a hold of yourself. No use panicking like a preteen girl._ He hovered unsurely in the dark corridor, considering. Surely it wasn't normal for a ghost to forget their lives?

"Mr. Malfoy."

Draco stiffened. He knew that voice. Granted, it wasn't as oily as he remembered—rather, it was more laden with fatigue and a hint of sadness—but there was no mistaking that voice. Bracing himself, Draco turned around to face Professor Severus Snape, his former Head of House.

XxXxXxXxXx

Harry lay in his bed, his comforter wrapped snugly up to his shoulders and the hangings drawn shut so that even the slightest hint of moonlight was blocked out. From his right, Ron's snores periodically pierced the air, while Seamus, on Harry's left, muttered softly in his sleep ("S'alright, mum, the toads are pickled."). Harry stared into the darkness, his mind repeatedly going back to the image of Draco Malfoy standing in the doorway of the Great Hall, a mere second before fleeing to the Room of Requirement.

He wanted to know what had happened to Draco Malfoy. How had he died? What had his life been like? _Malfoy_... the name sounded familiar, and Harry was sure he heard it somewhere. He strained his mind, remembering. Malfoy with pale blonde hair, Malfoy with a pointed face and cold expression...Malfoy, an ancient Wizarding pureblood family... _Lucius Malfoy_...a loyal Death Eater and servant of Lord Voldemort, sentenced to life in Azkaban when the Dark Lord fell.

Harry jolted upright. No, this could _not_ be happening. He had _not_ awakened the dead Slytherin son of an imprisoned Death Eater. He swore, overwhelmed by a new rush of questions. What if the son was as bad as the father? Everyone knew that the Slytherins were not a pleasant lot... Might Malfoy be able to help his father in prison? Come to think of it, ghosts would make brilliant spies; they couldn't be tortured or killed.

Suddenly awake, Harry jerked open the hangings, found his glasses, and swept his Invisibility Cloak around him. His breath rose in a small cloud, and he fleetingly wondered whether his breath was invisible as well. No matter. Right now, nothing mattered except finding Malfoy. He slipped soundlessly out of the dormitory, his heart thudding and his feet cold in their socks. Once in the corridor, he paused and closed his eyes, letting the icy tugging from before sweep over him. _Take me to Malfoy._ He opened his eyes; he knew where he needed to go.

XxXxXxXxXx

Snape's eyes were glittering oddly, the glow from his _Lumos_ spell reflecting off their black depths, and Draco could not discern what his former teacher was thinking at all. He gawped at Snape for a moment then pulled himself together and courteously acknowledged the older man.

"Professor Snape."

Snape inclined his head toward his office and murmured, "Come." He turned and strode toward the office, leaving Draco with the choice of whether or not to follow him. Draco hardly hesitated; he didn't remember how close he and Snape had been when Draco was alive, but the professor didn't make him feel threatened or unsettled in any way.

Snape's office was even gloomier-looking than the rest of the castle, yet somehow the bottled specimens and mixed scents of potions ingredients made Draco feel comfortable. The quietly bubbling cauldrons in the corner brought a feeling of distant familiarity, and Draco had a faint and fleeting memory of standing in front of a cauldron, staring down at a bubbly golden potion. Perhaps he'd been taking his NEWTs in Potions?

There was the faint scrape of wood on stone as Snape pulled out his chair and sat down, and there was such an expression of defeat on his former teacher's face that Draco felt an abrupt surge of guilt.

"Mr. Malfoy..." Snape repeated, looking warily at the ghostly boy in front of him, and Draco was suddenly sure of what Snape wanted to ask. _Why did you do it?_

Had Draco possessed a physical form, he would have sat down and hunched in his chair whilst shifting uncomfortably and glaring at his professor. As it was, he simply crossed his arms and made an effort to look anywhere but at Snape. Feeling Snape's stony eyes on him, however, made it very hard to ignore the professor, so after a beat he gave the only honest answer he could at the moment. He shrugged.

The non-answer was enough to turn Snape from wary to annoyed. His thin lips curled into a slight sneer as he rapped out "A _verbal_ answer, Mr. Malfoy" just as efficiently as if he'd been lecturing an average disobedient dunderhead.

"I don't know."

"You don't know why...?" Snape's tone was condescending, and Draco glowered.

"I don't _know_," he snarled coldly, suddenly angry. "I can't remember anything."

"How do you mean?"

"I mean, I can't remember. It's all hazy."

Snape paused, his sneer replaced by a look of thoughtful curiosity. Hope ballooned in Draco's chest. "Is that normal, for a ghost to forget?" Snape shook his head, his greasy hair swinging softly. The balloon promptly deflated. Draco frowned...but maybe if Snape couldn't answer that question, he would know the answers to some other questions that had been lingering in Draco's head all day.

"Professor? Why am I buried here, at Hogwarts?"

Snape hesitated. "Your parents would not allow you to be buried in the family plot. You dishonored your family name."

"And what has become of my parents?"

"Your father, since you don't remember, is currently serving a sentence in Azkaban. He was convicted on several counts of murder, torture, and attempted murder, as well as for joining the Death Eaters. I take it you don't remember them either?"

Draco shook his head. Death Eaters-- it sounded like a cult. He closed his eyes and behind his eyelids saw a flash of bright green. _Morsmordre_...he mouthed the word to himself. It meant something important.

When he opened his eyes, he saw Snape staring levelly at him.

"What?"

Snape shook his head again, as if to clear his thoughts. "There is much to tell you, Draco." And he began his story.


	4. Walk Within My Poetry

**Sleeping on the Edge of the Sky**

**Chapter 4: Walk Within My Poetry**

"Do you remember..." Snape paused, his obsidian eyes flicking to his left arm then back up to Draco. "...Voldemort?" The name was murmured almost fearfully, and Draco had another flash of memory: flame-red eyes, like those of a snake, piercing through him. The eyes vanished, merging with the fluttering flames in the fireplace, and Draco shook his head. Snape lowered his eyes and continued speaking.

"He was... a very powerful wizard. He sought to rid the Wizarding world of those who were born with Muggle blood. The Death Eaters were his followers, and your father, Draco, was one of his most avid and trusted lieutenants..."

XxXxXxXxXx

_Malfoy Manor was alive with Death Eaters, their faces unmasked as they milled about the finely decorated ballroom. In the center of the room stood Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy, their gold hair and pale skin catching the candlelight and making them stand out against the backdrop of black robes. Narcissa laughed at something, but even as her mouth curved into a sharp smile here eyes were somber. Every once a while she would glance at the ornate grandfather clock—and she was not the only one. In spite of the light atmosphere, a tension lingered in the group, visible only in sidelong glimpses toward the clock and the window, and in the way champagne glasses were clenched almost too tightly in white-knuckled hands. _

_Severus Snape was lurking in a corner next to a bust of a dour-looking sorcerer; he held a glass of dark wine in his hands but had not indulged in the liquid. At 11:41 a flash of white-gold caught his eye and he turned to see a thirteen-year-old Draco peering into the room. The boy was dressed in a black Hogwarts sweater and casual black trousers, and was clearly debating with himself as to whether or not he should enter the roomful of Death Eaters. He had, after all, not been invited, even though it _was_ his house. Snape stole up to the blonde boy and put his hand on one of his thin shoulders._

"_You should not be here."_

_Draco scowled up at his teacher and godfather, but neither retreated into the corridor nor attempted to enter the ballroom further. A burst of strangled laughter sounded from a group clustered near a large bay window. Peter Pettigrew was smiling anxiously at the laughing Death Eaters, his small eyes jumping nervously about. Out of everyone in the room, Pettigrew had the most reason to be nervous, because tonight was the night the Dark Lord was—on Pettigrew's information—going to seek out James and Lily Potter's secret hideout. After tonight, Voldemort would be unrivalled in power and no one would dare resist him._

_Draco was surveying the room, and when he had finished with this he looked up at Snape with furrowed brows. "Why are they celebrating?"_

"_Never mind that," Snape replied curtly. He had just started to give the boy an encouraging nudge out the door when Lucius appeared out of thin air before them. _

"_Severus, there you are!" The Malfoy patriarch's eyes slid over Snape then landed on Draco, who lifted his chin defiantly, and Snape split-second decided that the best course of action would be to defend himself against Lucius' surely-upcoming wrath. _

"_I was just sending Draco back upstairs," he explained. Lucius smiled coldly._

"_Let him stay. After all, this is the first time the Mudblood-loving fool has given the students Hallowe'en off. Come, Draco!" He wound his black-sleeved arms around his son's shoulder and steered him stiffly into the crowd. _

_At midnight the clock chimed; the sound was probably originally meant to resemble birdsong but somewhere along the way had gotten warped into a banshee-like shriek. The room fell silent. Amycus Carrow twisted his mask around in his doughy hands while Bellatrix Lestrange stared expectantly out the window, her dark eyes looking feverish and her chest heaving slightly as she waited for her lord. For a full minute no one moved. At 12:01 a few began exchanging dubious glances. _Where was he? Surely the deed should be done by now?

_The oppressive silence was broken by a distinctive popping sound, followed in rapid succession by many others. Aurors were Apparating among the Death Eaters, wands drawn and ready for a fight, and Snape had only the shortest moment in which to wonder how the Aurors had gotten past the wards when the first spell was uttered by the shocked Death Eaters. "_Crucio!_" Bellatrix's harsh voice rang out and immediately all hell broke loose. Between the crush of bodies and the flying spells Snape saw Draco running helter skelter, pushed this way and that, his hands small and wandless. The Potions Master made a grab for his student's arm and shoved him roughly into the corridor._

"_Run! Go!"_

_He left no room for argument, slamming the door shut just as a chandelier exploded overhead, raining knife-sharp crystals into the melee. Even as he drew his wand Snape knew there was no hope for the Death Eaters. The Dark Lord had failed his mission._

XxXxXxXxXx

"Your mother was placed under house arrest—she had you to care for—and your father, as I mentioned earlier, was sent to Azkaban. Voldemort had disappeared, defeated by a mere child. When you died, your father sent a letter denying your mother permission to have you buried in the family plot. It was Dumbledore who decided you should be buried on the edge of the school grounds."

Snape fell silent as Draco stared, trying to process new information. The fire crackled patiently. Snape folded his hands on his desk.

"Incidentally, Draco, how did you come to be a ghost? One does not decide, after thirteen years of death, that they would rather haunt the earth."

Draco shrugged for the second time that evening. "I just...opened my eyes and realized I could see."

Snape studied him quizzically, and both the dark professor and the translucent student were thoughtfully quiet.

"Interesting," Snape muttered. "In addition to the memory loss, have you noticed anything else worth mentioning?"

Draco remembered fleeing from the Great Hall, and the frigid tugging that had accompanied the action. He haltingly explained the feeling to Snape, who frowned. "Have you experienced this tugging since then?"

As if by magic, as soon as Snape asked Draco realized that he was feeling the tugging at that very moment. It had crept up on him while he floated, enthralled by Snape's story; it felt like a frozen string had knotted itself around his middle and was attempting to pull him into the unlit corridor. "I'm feeling it now."

Snape raised his eyebrows, his questioning expression curling into a predatory one. With a brusque "Stay here!" directed at Draco, he strode to the door of the classroom and threw it open. He stood on the threshold, the jumping firelight and the fierce determination in his eyes making him look weirdly demonic. He searched the corridor, staring hard into the stone-lined darkness before his gaze rested on a spot not two feet from where he was standing. To Draco, the spot looked just as empty as the rest of the corridor, but evidently Snape saw something, for his bony hand flashed out and grabbed hold of what was seemingly air.

Draco blinked and saw that what had, seconds before, looked like empty space was no longer empty but was occupied by a boy. A Gryffindor, judging by the scarf, with short but wildly messy black hair, round glasses, a scarred forehead, and an utterly flabbergasted expression.

"Harry Potter." Snape's clipped voice was positively dripping with perverse triumph. "I might have known."


End file.
